


Lovely, Dark and Deep

by livia_1291



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: A little bit of blood, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Completed, Curses, Enchantment, Finnish Mythology - Freeform, Folktales, Forests, How Do I Tag, Lynx - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Marriage, Minna did it first okay, Non Graphic, Poor sheep boy, Reynir Árnason - Freeform, Riches, Slight Nudity, Trials, Tuulikki hotakainen - Freeform, a little bit of smut, and siv and torbjorn know what's up, based on a hungarian folktale, beasts - Freeform, because i can't write smut, but he's got a heart of gold, emil is a disgraced aristocrat, emillalli, family troubles, just a tiny bit, lalli is a literal lynx, luonto, mora knives, myths, onni is ominous and sad, part of a series, she wasn’t meant to be there but I just couldn’t help it, spirit realm, this has been in my head for ages, trials and tribulations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livia_1291/pseuds/livia_1291
Summary: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.”— Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningEmil Västerström and his family have been down on their luck since Emil's father gambled away their vast fortune to a faerie and left them desolate. When a mysterious man offers Emil an enchanted compass that promises to lead him to something that will restore his pride and wealth, he takes the chance and is guided to the heart of the forest, where magic runs wild and nothing is as it seems.Emilalli, based on a Hungarian folktale, with themes of adversity, love, and change.
Relationships: Lalli Hotakainen/Emil Västerström
Comments: 61
Kudos: 48





	1. Epäonni

The soup in Emil’s bowl looked _exactly_ like dishwater, right down to the bubbles frothing milky white on the surface. He gave the thin broth a stir with his tarnished spoon, choking back a groan of distaste as chunks of woody carrot floated to the top, pale and undercooked.

“Quit playing with your food,” Helga hissed, and Emil bit back the retort on his tongue as he tore a piece of bread from the loaf resting in the center of the table and dipped it into the grey excuse for a meal before him. _It wasn’t her fault._ It tasted just as good as it looked, he noted grimly as he forced himself to chew and swallow. 

“And don’t take so much bread!” His father chided, glaring from the head of the table to his son. “You know that has to last us the week.” Ah, there was Emil’s excuse for a fight.

“Maybe it would last us longer if someone hadn’t gambled our whole fortune away,” He muttered, resting his cheek in his palm and poking at his soup with the almost-stale crust of his bread.

 _“Emil!”_ His mother cried, and Torolf was on his feet, slamming his fist on the table so violently that the silverware clattered against the laquered wood.

“Get out,” he hissed, “get _out_ and don’t come back until you’ve found something useful to do with yourself.”

Torolf didn’t have to tell Emil twice. The boy was up and out the door before his father could finish his sentence, grabbing his cloak from the peg by the door and storming off into the dark summer night.

The air was cool and soothing on burning cheeks, and he took great lungfuls of it to steady himself as he walked towards town center. He passed a group of tittering teenage girls who giggled as he passed, and two old men playing checkers by the fountain. _Privacy,_ he thought frantically, _I need somewhere to be alone._

“Boy.”

Emil looked up from where he had been focused on his footprints in the dirt, meeting the gloomy grey eyes of a cloaked man. His silvery hair had been cut messily, as though with a knife, and hung light and lank around his square jaw. A feathered cloak that might have been white once fell from his shoulders, stopping just above his worn black boots. Around his neck hung a necklace that seemed as though it was made of the talons of some great bird, shining and glinting in the moonlight.

“Me?” Emil asked, resting his hand on his chest and quirking a brow in silent question.

“ _Yes,_ you. Hurry, we haven’t got much time,” the stranger told him, and before Emil could react, he had reached out and dragged him into an alley by his cloak.

“Hey--!” He began to protest, before the man covered his mouth with a calloused hand to quiet him.

“Listen to me carefully if you want to restore any of your honor, Emil Västerström,” the man told him, voice low, and Emil’s heart lurched uncomfortably in his chest. He _definitely_ had not given his name yet.

Quickly, the man pressed a cloth-wrapped object into his hand, keeping his voice low and steady. “You must take this, and follow it wherever it leads you. It will guide you to your destiny and the key to restoring yourself and your family to your former glory. Leave tomorrow at dawn.” The finality in his voice left little room for argument, but Emil was stubborn and proud, and did not take kindly to being told what to do.

“And if I don’t?” Emil asked, swallowing past the fear in his throat.

“Then everyone in this story will spend their lives as they are right now,” the man told him, raising his hand before Emil’s stunned face. His palm glowed with the intensity of a star, and at once, Emil’s eyelids grew heavy. “Now sleep, and prepare yourself for the journey ahead of you. It won’t be an easy one.” 

The last thing Emil saw before he slipped into unconsciousness was a great silver owl with too-bright blue eyes, and the full moon shining above him, cold and so very far away.

* * *

The summer sun dawned bright and warm, and Emil was awake with the town for once. He had come to, groggy, to find himself asleep in a filthy alley, wrapped in his cloak, and clutching a little cloth-wrapped package bound with coarse twine. 

He remembered now. A mysterious, owlish man, a warning, and a promise of a life restored. Eagerly, he untied the twine, fumbling a little with the knot, and pulled the cloth away, expecting an enchantment, a jewel, perhaps, or a gold coin. What he found was none of these things.

“A compass?” he gaped, staring in disbelief at the tiny apparatus. It looked completely unremarkable at first glance; a plain, unornamented brass casing, covered by a sheet of glass. The only thing even slightly out of the ordinary was the shining gold needle that seemed to float untethered over the center of the compass, rotating slowly in search of its direction. _Follow it wherever it leads you._ As he watched, the little needle quivered, and turned down the alley, pointing straight towards the edge of the forest.

“Into the woods, huh?” He muttered, squinting at the compass in his palm. “What kind of destiny hides away in the woods? Is this thing broken?” Carelessly, he gave the instrument a shake, hoping to jar the needle into pointing somewhere else, anywhere else. 

“Come on…” He coaxed, tapping on the thin glass cover with the tip of one finger. “The castle, or the village, or that stupid mountain road...anywhere.” To his utter dismay, the golden needle did not budge. 

“The woods it is, I guess.” Begrudgingly, Emil drew the hood of his cloak up to hide his face and set off on the overgrown trail into the dense, verdant trees.

The forest surrounding Mora was hardly forgiving during the winter, when all of the leaves had changed color, fallen and exposed the vicious beasts within to the unforgiving fingers of the cold that swept through the land, choking out all life that was not prepared for the harsh snow squalls and ice storms. In summer, with dense foliage blocking out all but the most persistent rays of the sun, it was thick with life, and nearly impassible. The wild creatures within were at their boldest, warm and constantly on the prowl for the resources they would lack during the cold months.

These thoughts remained at the front of Emil’s mind as he followed the golden needle down the mossy path, straight into the wooded heart of the forest. The hand not cradling the compass rested at the Mora knife he kept on his belt, rubbing the worn bone handle like a talisman. It was far too small to do any real damage, but it was better than nothing.

Suddenly, the compass needle quivered, and Emil stopped, holding his breath as it floated away from pointing him down the worn path, and directed him instead to a thicket of silvery birch trees several paces into the underbrush. 

“What the…” He murmured, glancing down at the steady needle, and then at the grove once more. According to this seemingly magic compass, his destiny, his only shot at redeeming his family and restoring them to their former glory, was cached away in those trees.

“This is _not_ what I was hoping for.” Reluctantly, he pocketed the compass and stepped off of the path. Something crunched beneath his boots, and when he looked down, he was horrified to find the remains of a deer, dry bones offering their bleached warning against the rich brown earth. _You should not be here,_ they told him, and he swallowed hard, fingers wrapping around the handle of his blade.

“For my family,” he told himself, beginning towards the birches. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he was sure that behind him, the trees were knitting together, choking out the way home. _No turning back,_ the wind whispered, and Emil pulled his cloak tighter around himself, suddenly chilled to the bone despite the summer sun flickering through the treetops. The air seemed different, somehow. Cooler. _Brighter_.

Emil was no further than twelve steps off the path when he heard the growl. He knew almost immediately that it was a beast - no real animal could sound so hungry, so blindly vicious. Instinctively, he drew his knife, holding it in front of him in a shaking fist.

“Show yourself!” He called, and to his horror, a great, hulking shadow answered his call with a hiss. Its wolfish face was framed by a great, blood-matted mane. Too-thin back legs tapered off into the cloven hooves of a goat, while heavy front legs ended in the sharp claws of a panther. Behind it, a great black tail topped with a bulbous stinger swung threateningly. When it roared at him, he vaguely registered that it had too many teeth.

“Um,” he managed, looking behind him to gauge his escape routes. The trees were far too dense - had they grown since he came this way? - he would never get back to the path in time. His only shot was to fight. _This is it,_ he thought grimly, _better to go down fighting than to live a life in disgrace_.

When the beast charged him, he was ready, knife raised and glinting in the green sunlight. Wildly, he swung it, aiming for something, anything that would keep him alive for just a moment longer. The blade grazed a stout neck, earning a furious howl from the beast as dark green blood oozed, saplike from the shallow wound.

“Hah!” He panted, pumping his fist in triumph. Unfortunately for him, the creature took advantage of his lowered guard, jabbing wildly with its raised tail. The stinger bit into the muscle of Emil’s shoulder, administering a dose of venom that made him feel as though his blood had turned to fire. 

For a moment, he could hear nothing save for the staccato stutter of his own breath, stunned and delirious. With a choked gasp, he stabbed in the direction of the stinger, desperate to get it out of his skin. _Come on, come on,_ he thought as he waved his fist frantically through the air by his shoulder, eyes watering with agony. Finally, his knife connected with exoskeleton, and he gripped at the thin base of the tail with his free hand, cutting it free with one unsteady movement.

This was it. Emil crumpled to his knees, gazing bleakly into the crimson eyes of the great beast. He could smell the sticky-sweet blood soaking into his shoulder, could feel the monster’s hot breath on his face, could taste death like bile in the back of his throat. He closed his eyes and waited for the tear of a hundred teeth at his throat.

It never came. When Emil opened his eyes, the beast was dead before him, throat torn out where it stood, dripping emerald blood onto the forest floor. He had not even heard it die. Standing beside it, cleaning one snowshoe paw with a rough tongue, was the most ethereal creature Emil had ever seen.

A lynx, with luminous blue eyes, silver fur, and beast blood on its mouth stared at him from the middle of the clearing, silent and expectant. Emil could not move, both due to the shock that paralyzed his muscles, and the venom coursing through his veins, but even if he could have, he would not have. For some reason, he was not afraid. _Wonderstruck_ was a better word. He could not shake the feeling that he knew those eyes, that he had seen them once before, maybe in a dream. 

With utmost grace, as though it was walking on air instead of the leaf-littered forest floor, the lynx approached him, sniffing curiously at his injured shoulder. Up close, Emil could see the way its pelt shimmered in the light, could smell the smoke and pine trees and old blood that clung to it. It sat beside him, tail twitching, and all of a sudden, the whole forest began to shiver, as if shaken by a breeze. The lynx’s whole form was bright with the magic of healing. All around him was the sound of rhythmic chanting, as if the trees themselves were singing, and when they stopped, the fire in Emil’s veins had faded, and the gash from the monster’s stinger had faded to a scar. The lynx only blinked at him, as though this was an entirely normal occurrence.

“You saved my life,” Emil whispered, enthralled by the way starlight blue eyes were fading into pale silver. In his pocket, the compass was burning, and before it could sear a hole in his pants, he pulled it out, cupping it in his trembling palms. 

The golden arrow was glowing like a star, pointing directly to the lynx before him. Emil swallowed, dizzy with disbelief as he held the compass out in front of him.

“No way,” he managed, and the lynx stood, tail twitching, and silver eyes fixed on Emil’s. When it spoke, its mouth did not move, but Emil heard it loud and clear, just as he had heard the chanting minutes before.

_“My name is Lalli. You owe me a favor.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been in my head for months, and it was finally time to get it out. Here is my contribution to this lovely fandom. Enjoy!
> 
> xx. 
> 
> Liv


	2. Tapaaminen

_“Give up. They won’t let you go until you agree.”_

Emil sprawled on his back with a weak groan, wiping blood from a gash on his cheek. Slowly, he hauled himself to his feet, glaring apprehensively at the trees that had trapped him in the hollow gloom of the birch grove. Insistent hacking with his too-small knife had yielded no progress, and running at the tightly interlocking mess of twigs and leaves only served to scrape his skin and tear his clothes.

“I am _not_ going to marry you! I just met you, and you’re a _lynx_!”

Lalli sat on silver haunches in the center of the grove, watching Emil’s valiant attempts with cool grey eyes.

_“I don’t want this any more than you do.”_

“Then why are you doing it? Just let me go!” Emil pleaded, yanking fruitlessly at the thin white branches and hissing when one tore at the tender skin of his palm. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

 _“I have no use for possessions. I don’t need power, and I don’t want money. The only thing you could give me is your hand. I can promise_ you _things.”_

Emil could not help his dubious bark of laughter as he cradled his bleeding palm to his chest, where crimson was creeping into the white fabric of his shirt.

“Yeah? What could _you_ possibly give _me_?” He retorted, “You can’t return my status. You can’t give me back what was taken from me. You’re _just a lynx_!”

Lalli bristled, speckled fur standing on end as he stood. Emil could feel the air around them crackle with strange magic - it was a warning, he could feel that much, but he was not sure if it was meant for Lalli or for him.

_“How stupid are you? I wasn’t always a--!”_

There was a crack like a whip, and the air grew cold. Lalli fell silent, growling low in his throat and arching his back in defense. When he spoke again, his voice was as rough as though he had just inhaled smoke. 

_“You’re bleeding.”_

Emil followed moon-silver eyes to where they were trained on his palm, sticky with sweet-smelling blood. “It’s a scratch,” he mumbled, “I’ll just wash it.”

_“Give me your palm.”_

Emil balked.

“I don’t really--” The razor-sharp look Lalli gave him burned through his weak excuses, and he dropped his hand from his chest. Lalli sniffed at it with a pink nose, before sitting back and closing his eyes. When he opened them again, they were that strange, unnatural blue that Emil had seen when he had fought the beast. There was something afoot here that he could not understand. Not yet, at least. 

Instead of hearing Lalli’s voice in his head this time, it seemed to come from all around him. It was a whisper, a low, rhythmic chant in a language that Emil was sure he had never heard before, but was somehow familiar anyway. The spell rustled the leaves of the trees, stirring the dark heart of the forest in its summer slumber. Emil was enchanted, watching as the blue light grew brighter and brighter before Lalli closed his eyes once more, and the forest went still.

For a moment, Emil did not breathe. When he looked down at his palm, he was greeted by the sight of smooth, clean skin. 

“Did you do this?” He marvelled, tracing a finger over the unblemished lines of his own palm. Not even a scar remained - it was as if he had never been hurt in the first place.

 _“Yes. I can give you power.”_ Lalli told him, and if Emil did not know better, he would have thought he heard the edges of desperation cutting like broken glass in his tone. 

There really was no way out of this, Emil realized. Might as well take the deal and get out of here. 

“Okay,” he exhaled his words in a rush, running a trembling hand through his hair, “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

The lynx closed his eyes, and the resounding purr from his throat was a low rumble, like thunder rolling off the distant mountains. At the wordless command, the forest gave an audible sigh, and a rush of cool air parted the trees that, moments before, had held Emil fast. Dying golden sunlight flickered through the canopy, and Emil sucked in a breath. _Dusk._ It wasn’t supposed to be so late - just how long had he been here? A glance at his watch was no use - both hands had stopped, glinting dull and still behind the crystal.

“ _Go home_ ,” Lalli told him briskly, “ _I’ll send for you when the time is right. And if you need me…”_ He nudged at Emil’s still-trembling hand with a surprisingly silky cheek, and without thinking, Emil held his palm out. Delicately, Lalli dropped three bleach-white bones into it, about the size and length of a finger. Emil swallowed down the rising bile in his throat. _Gross_.

“What am I supposed to do with these?” He asked, looking up from the gleaming tokens in his hand. He was greeted by silence: in the brief moment that he had taken his attention away, Lalli had gone. 

No prints left by snowshoe paws offered a clue to his whereabouts, and a quick glance to the wild knot of tree branches above his head told Emil that he was not about to get pounced on. Now was his chance.

 _Run_.

Emil was not a particularly athletic man by birth. A spoiled-rotten childhood of cake and barely having to lift a finger to do anything had left him sorely out of shape. He had been the unfortunate target of quite a lot of abuse by his cruel-mouthed peers upon the beginning of his public schooling career. Thanks to a few years of training in preparation for the military, he had been kicked into far better shape, but he had never been very partial to running regardless.

_Faster, faster._

Now, he could think of nothing else as he flew through the forest, feet falling heavy on moss and twigs and slick leaf-litter. Thin-fingered branches snatched at his clothes, but he did not stop, not until he had cleared the edge of the forest and was safe in the tall grasses of the border fields. 

The sun was setting over the distant mountains, turning the sky a brilliant reddish-orange. Emil stood doubled over, taking in great gulps of fresh air as he tried to regain control of his body. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of a distant songbird, and the heaving stutter of his breath as he tried to catch it. His legs were jelly, his throat stung, and his chest burned with exertion. The bones were still clutched in his right hand, and he crinkled his nose in distaste as he uncurled his fingers from around them. He had been holding them so tightly that they had left imprints in his palm, dark pink and sweaty. 

“Stupid bones,” he muttered, drawing his arm back to throw them back into the forest. As soon as he got rid of them, he would be able to go home, turn his back on the trees, and forget all of this.

 _But Lalli said he would send for you_ , peeped a tiny voice in his head, and Emil swallowed, lowering his arm. Something tight and heavy in his gut told him that there would be no running from this promise.

Reluctantly, Emil tucked the three bones away in his pocket, and with a last glance to the dark trees, he began his long walk home along the darkening cobbled path through the village. He did his best to ignore the tittering whispers of the shopkeepers as they swept their doorsteps clean of the day’s dirt. A quick glance in a gleaming shop window told him why - his clothes were torn and filthy, there was a smear of dark blood on his cheek, and his hair was wild and littered with leaves and twigs from his hasty escape from the woods.

Well. That was one problem he could fix. A quick ruffle of golden strands served to smooth the tangles and remove the organic detritus from the forest. He still didn’t look _great_ , but he had just slept on the ground, fought a beast, and promised himself to some sort of forest spirit. This would have to do.

Emil’s house glowed warmly as he approached it, all golden light and the smell of fresh bread drifting from the open windows. His stomach twisted with hunger. Never before had he been so grateful to be home. 

Before he could even raise his hand to knock, the door flew open, revealing the worried face of his aunt Siv. 

“Emil! Oh, thank all the gods you’re safe,” she gasped, ushering him inside with a slender hand, “Torbjörn and I came as soon as we heard you’d disappeared, we were all so worried. Your mother has been beside herself, and--”

She was cut off by a shriek from the end of the hall. Helga Västerström stared, wide-eyed with disbelief at her son, covering her red mouth with splayed fingers.

“You’re okay,” she whispered, and when she crumpled to her knees, Emil lunged down the hall to catch her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a convoluted pain in the butt to write. I hope you all enjoy it - I'm struggling a little with the characterization, but I hope nothing's too out of character!
> 
> xx.
> 
> Liv


	3. Kukat

“So, ah, where _were_ you?” Torbjörn asked, ladling some more soup into Emil’s already-full bowl. He only picked at the food his aunt and uncle had brought with them, even though he was sure it was the best he had had in months. 

“The forest. I needed to think,” he responded feebly, dragging his spoon though the thick potato broth so that the flimsy metal scraped over the bottom of the ceramic bowl. It wasn’t a lie, but it _definitely_ was not the whole truth.

“For _three days_?” Helga whispered, drawing her shawl tighter around her frail shoulders. “When Astrid told us she had seen you going into the forest, we all thought you were dead! What were you thinking?! Your aunt and uncle came all the way from Mora to look for you!”

“I’m...sorry,” Emil admitted, and he was. Siv and Torbjörn had gone through a lot of trouble to come all the way up to the Vinterstaden to look for him - it was no short journey. “I didn’t think I was gone that long.” _Or that you lot would worry so much._

When Siv had taken him by the arm and told him, surprisingly gently, that he had been missing for three days, Emil had brushed her off with a humorless laugh. What kind of joke was that? It had been a day and a night at most, he told her - the night he had slept in the alley, and the day he had spent in the forest. Siv’s look of utter confusion and distress at his response, and his mother’s pale face and horrified eyes as his father waved smelling salts beneath her nose was enough to convince him that he had been gone for quite a bit longer than he had thought.

“All is forgiven, Emil,” Torbjörn promised, shoving what looked to be half a loaf of crusty bread to him from across the table. “Really, we don’t mind. Now _eat_ , it’s been a while.”

It _had_ been a while - he had eaten nothing in the forest, save for a few bites of chewy dried apple he had folded into a kerchief and stashed in his pocket, and a sip of water from a fast-moving stream. Despite the hunger he knew should have been gnawing at his stomach, he couldn’t convince himself to eat anything. For a blessed moment, there was nothing but the clinking of silverware against bowls, and the crackling of the fire.

“What were you doing for three days?” Demanded Torolf abruptly, earning a not-too-subtle elbow to the ribs from his brother. “ _Ow_ , what was that for? We have a right to know what he was up to!”

There was the dreaded question. The three bones Lalli had given him burned in his pocket like hot coals, and he winced, drawing back into his seat. _The truth,_ whispered a voice in his head, _tell the truth._

“I got engaged,” he mumbled, and the whole dining room fell so quiet that Emil could hear a fly buzzing desperately against the windowpane, trying to free itself from the stifling indoor heat.

Siv, ever-quick, was the first to regain her voice. “You got...what?” 

“Engaged,” repeated Emil, and this time, his voice was strong. “I am engaged.”

Torolf’s lips were pressed together so tightly they were white, while Torbjörn was still slightly slack-jawed. There was something almost satisfying in their shock, Emil noted. This was _clearly_ not the answer they had expected from him at all. Granted, it was not the answer he had expected to give, but that was beside the point.

“Oh Emil,” sighed Helga at last, clasping her hands together with a pleased smile, “that’s wonderful! Finally, you’ve found a partner, you must bring them home to us at once.”

“No!” Emil’s response was too hasty - he knew that the moment that the words left his mouth. “I...I mean, not yet. He’s not...ready yet. We’re only just engaged.”

Helga tilted her head, before nodding in slow understanding. “I see. Well, then bring us some flowers from him. That will at least give us _something_ to go off of.”

“Yes, that’s a wonderful idea! Wouldn’t want to move too fast,” Torbjörn chimed in, wiping his mouth clean of soup and breadcrumbs, and Emil nearly choked at the irony. “Tomorrow, you can go see him and bring back a bouquet. Maybe don’t stay away for three days, though,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Flowers,” repeated Emil dully, staring into his bowl of untouched soup. “Right. I’ll go see him tomorrow.”

* * *

_“Nuku, nuku nurmilintu,_

_Väsy, väsy, västäräkki._

_Nuku nurmelle hyvälle,_

_Vaivu maalle valkialle.”_

_Tuulikki’s voice was rich and honey-sweet as she crooned to the sleepy child curled in her lap, stroking pale strands of hair back from his forehead. The late autumn sky was just beginning to lose color and sink into the purple velvet of night, and she too was weary from a day of foraging. The apples they had collected from a grove of trees on the edge of the forest sat in a pile beside her, red as kisses, and still warm from the afternoon sun._

_“Mom?”_

_“Lalli?” She tapped his nose with one gloved finger, and sleepy silver eyes fluttered open._

_“I want to go to the stream tomorrow, where the waterfall is…”_

_Her laugh was as sweet as the apples they had enjoyed just hours before. She gathered him close, sweeping her cloak over him as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, curling slender fingers into her straw-gold hair._

_“Yes, I suppose we should check on the--”_

_Lalli felt his mother tense from where he was snuggled against her. Her intake of breath was loud in his ear, and when she pulled him back from her shoulder, the fear in her eyes was palpable._

_“Lalli, you must listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say,” Tuulikki whispered. Beside her, the apples had withered to rotting brown. “You must go hide, hide in the root hollow of that big elm tree over there, and you must be very, very quiet. Do not move until I come get you, and do_ not _open your eyes.” Urgently, she wrapped her cloak around him, pressing a shaky kiss to his forehead as she got to her feet. Her fingertips were sparking with the beginnings of a spell._

_“But--” Lalli began, and Tuulikki shook her head, pointing to the tree._

_“Go, please, Lalli. I’ll come get you in a minute.”_

_As he hurried off to hide himself away, Tuulikki brushed the hot tears from her eyes, and whispered so that only the wind could hear her._

_“I love you.”_

_The roots of the elm were knotted and twisted into a frightening snarl, but Lalli knew better than to fear them. He could feel something moving through the trees, something that spit off dark energy like the sun spit off the aurora. Positioning himself amongst the roots so that he was hidden, he peeked around the tree, back into the clearing._

_From his hiding place, he could see his mother, her eyes closed tight, and her hands extended before her in a wide, pulsing protective spell. The creature before her was barely corporeal. It was a seething, black-orange mass of energy so wicked, Lalli felt like he was going to retch._

_Tuulikki’s spell began to break as it moved forward, dragging itself across once-verdant grass._

_“Please, please, not Lalli, not my baby, take me instead, don’t--”_

_There was a shriek, high and piercing. Lalli jerked back, clamped his palms over his ears, and wished desperately that he had not looked._

_“I know you are there, little one.” The reedy, creaky voice was both familiar and entirely foreign, and Lalli drew himself further into the root hollow, trying to quiet his breathing in hopes that he would remain hidden._

_The eyes of a Kade are strong, though, and his luck was wearing thin. His heart caught in his throat when bony fingers wrapped tight around his tunic and yanked, pulling him out from the roots that had protected him_

_Don’t look. That was imperative. He kept his eyes closed tight, sparks dancing behind them in horrible shades of green and yellow._

_“Let me go!”_

_The Kade laughed, and it was an unnatural, crackling noise, a dying bonfire trapped in a too-thin throat._

_“Open your eyes, little one. I can make you powerful. I can make you live forever. Your mother was a silly woman, holding you back from what you could be. I can give you the whole world for your keeping. Open your eyes.”_

_Lalli kept his eyes screwed shut. In his belly, he felt latent power roiling, silver and blue as a winter night. He had called on his gifts before, back when his grandmother was still a woman and not a monster, and had sat beside him with her kantele to teach him the old songs._

_When he opened his mouth and keened, the whole world shattered._

_He woke alone and in pain, locked in an unfamiliar shape._

_“Nuku, nuku nurmilintu,_

_Väsy, väsy, västäräkki._

_Nuku nurmelle hyvälle,_

_Vaivu maalle valkialle.”_

* * *

Lalli was jarred from restless sleep by a spark behind his ribs, and a hollow, splintering snap in his ears. _Emil_. He must have broken one of the little bones Lalli had given him. 

With an unhurried yawn, the lynx dragged himself to his feet and stretched deeply, blinking in the morning sunlight. It was _early_ , and he was nocturnal. They’d have to have a talk about that, Lalli decided.

There was a thin, glowing gold thread that stretched along the leaf litter, leading him from where he had slept to the east of the forest, where Emil was perched on a rock, holding two halves of a hollow bone. It had leaked gold magic all over his hands and lap, though Emil seemed not to notice. 

“ _Did you call me for a reason, or did you just want to interrupt my nap?”_

Emil tumbled off the rock with a startled cry, and if his mouth had had the shape for it, Lalli might have had to smother a humorless laugh. He had heard that humans often lacked grace, but never before had he seen one this hopeless.

“You scared me,” griped Emil, brushing dirt off his tunic and pants and clambering back up onto the boulder. 

_“You called. You should have expected me.”_

“I didn’t think you would come.”

 _“I don’t break promises.”_ Lithe and graceful as ever, Lalli hopped up onto the rock, sure to keep a comfortable distance as he stared Emil down, claws curled into the rough stone. _“What did you want?”_

“Do I have to want something?” Emil tried, and if Lalli could have rolled his eyes, he would have.

_“Yes.”_

Emil’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. My parents and my aunt and uncle found out I’m engaged. They wanted to meet you, but you’re…” He gestured wordlessly at the lynx beside him, grimacing just slightly. “So now they want you to make a bouquet so I can bring it to them. I guess they want to judge you on your taste in flowers or something?”

It was probably best not to tell Emil that that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard, so instead, he stood and stretched, blinking at the boy beside him with moon-pale eyes. 

_“Okay.”_

“That’s it? You’ll do it? But how, you’re a--”

_“--Lynx, I know, you keep bringing that up.”_

Emil’s resounding laugh was dry and humorless. “How can I not?”

_“Mrr…”_

“Sorry, sorry, I’ll stop,” he promised, holding up both of his hands in mock surrender. “So, ah, the flowers…”

 _“Yes. Rest here, and don’t go anywhere. I’ll get them.”_ Lalli hopped down from the boulder just as nimbly as he had climbed up on it, arching his back in a stretch. When he looked back to a puzzled Emil, his eyes were burning blue.

 **_“Sleep.”_ ** Lalli bid him, and before Emil could protest, he felt his eyelids growing heavy. The sunlight was comfortably warm, and if he pillowed his head on his arm, the rough surface of the boulder was almost inviting…

* * *

Emil woke to the sound of a bird calling in the branches above him. The day had grown warmer, and the sun hung high above the trees. His mouth felt like it was full of sand, and he rolled out his stiff shoulders with a hiss. In hidsight, a large rock in the forest was not really the best place for a comfortable nap. 

At least, not for a human. Lalli was curled several feet away, watching Emil from the shade of a birch tree. He looked positively regal. The dappled light cast a hundred unfamiliar colors onto his pelt, and resting against his side was a bouquet of the strangest flowers Emil had ever seen.

“How long have you been staring at me?” He croaked, sliding down from the rock and taking a moment to steady himself. He _really_ should have brought some water.

_“Long enough. You talk in your sleep.”_

“Oh.” Vaguely, Emil wondered if Lalli noticed the flush on his cheeks. Probably - nothing seemed to escape him. _How embarrassing._ “You, uh, got some flowers.”

Carefully, he knelt beside the lynx, who surveyed his movements steadily. The flowers glinted in the afternoon light, and Emil took them, rocking back on his heels. As he examined them, his eyes grew wide, and he was suddenly a little dazed.

“These are made of silver and gold,” he breathed, running a fingertip over the fluted edge of a boreal twinflower cast in heavy yellow gold. “How did you…?”

Striking eyes burned into Emil’s, and he went quiet, swallowing past his heart in his throat. It went without saying that there were things at work here that he did not understand.

“Thanks,” Emil murmured, and he found that he really meant it. “It must have been a lot of trouble to get these.”

 _“No trouble for me,”_ Lalli corrected him, shifting so that his head was resting on his front paws. _“It would have been for you. You can’t pass between realms...or you shouldn’t.”_

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emil asked, though his eyes were fixated on a silver lily-of-the-valley winking at him from the center of the bouquet.

Lalli was quiet for a long moment, calculating. When he spoke, his words were slow and careful. _“The day we met. You passed the Threshold of_ Lintukoto, _the land of spirits. You’re human, you aren’t supposed to be able to. But you did.”_

“That’s why I was gone for three days, but it only felt like hours to me,” he realized. “Are we in... _Lintukoto_ right now? How can you tell?”

 _“We’re in the human realm._ Lintukoto _feels different. The air is...brighter. Or at least, it used to be.”_

“Felt the same to me,” muttered Emil, and he could almost feel Lalli’s annoyance prickling the back of his neck. “Wait, what do you mean it “used to be”? What happened to it?”

 _“Ten of your years ago, an evil came to_ Lintukoto. _It took my family, and it brought darkness to the world. Beasts and sickness and death. It hasn’t been the same since. Sometimes those things slip past the Threshold and into the forest here.”_

Emil was still, staring into the flowers in his lap. He couldn’t find the right words to say -- he wasn’t sure if there _were_ any right words. “I’m sorry” seemed too superficial, and he was quite sure that Lalli wouldn’t appreciate it. So he remained quiet, holding the tenuous space between them.

 _“You should go,”_ Lalli stated, standing and observing him with those radiant silver eyes. Emil needed nothing else to tell him that there was no room to negotiate.

“I’ll see you…?” he asked as he shook pine needles from the hem of his tunic, and Lalli nodded only once before slipping back into the trees. It was only seconds before all flashes of bright fur were swallowed up by choking green undergrowth.

* * *

“Emil, these are beautiful!” Helga gasped, taking the bouquet that her son held out to her and turning it between her palms. She fawned over the delicate silver and gold flowers, delighting in the way that they chimed as they brushed against each other.

“Your fiancé has good taste,” Torolf admitted begrudgingly as he leaned over his wife’s shoulder to scrutinize the shining bouquet. “Where did you say he was from?” 

“I didn’t,” yawned Emil, who was gazing longingly at the hallway to his room. “I’m going to go to bed. Enjoy them, I guess.”

After Helga and Torolf had retired, taking the flowers with them to their bedroom for safekeeping, Siv and Torbjörn remained by the fire, sipping from cups of hot water sweetened with touches of wildflower honey. 

“So, what are the odds that our Emil’s got himself into some sort of ridiculous trouble?” Torbjörn arched one bushy brow, turning his head to rest his nose in his wife’s hair.

“Knowing Emil? One-hundred percent,” snorted Siv, tugging a corner of blanket from Torbjörn’s lap into her own. “I bet he’s accidentally gotten himself engaged to some sort of faerie or something…”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends!
> 
> I'm sorry for not posting on this for a while. Life got understandably funky for a bit, and I had to adjust accordingly. I hope to post more regularly soon! I’m working on a short and sweet little sequel to Above, Beneath, Betwixt, Between, and I did make this chapter longer than usual to hopefully make up for the two month hiatus. Enjoy!
> 
> xx.
> 
> Liv
> 
> GLOSS:
> 
> Vinterstaden - a nickname for Östersund
> 
> Lintukoto - Finnish mythology. Realm where migratory birds were believed to live in wintertime. In modern Finnish, the word is used as a metaphor for a happy place.
> 
> Nuku, nuku nurmilintu: A Finnish lullaby often played on kantele. The lyrics Tuulikki sings to Lalli translate to “Sleep, sleep meadow bird,  
> Tired, tired, wagtail.  
> Sleep well in the grass,  
> Drift into the white land.”


	4. Nenäliina

“Emil? Come here for a moment!” Called Torbjörn, and Emil looked up from where he was moodily jabbing at the fire with an iron poker, dragging himself to his feet.

“Sure,” he yawned, going to stand over his uncle’s shoulder. Torbjörn carefully folded the newspaper he had been reading into fourths and set it aside, turning to face his nephew and gesturing to the empty chair beside him.

“You know you’ve always been like a son to Siv and me,” he began, and Emil couldn’t help his internal groan and eye roll, though he remained externally rigid as a board as he sank into the chair. _Here we go._ “So you know we couldn’t help our concern for you. Those flowers were nice and all--”

“ _\--very_ nice,” corrected Siv, who was hanging up her cloak by the door. She had just come back from the town, where she had sent a telegram to Emil’s three little cousins back in Mora after receiving news that morning that the third nanny of the week had quit.

Torbjörn nodded in hasty agreement. “Yes, _very_ nice, but see, we were wondering more about his family. When you marry someone, you don’t just marry them, you know. You marry their whole family.”

Oh. _Jävlar_. Emil’s palms went sticky, and he wiped them hastily on his trousers. 

“Right, of course,” he mumbled, fidgeting just a little under his aunt and uncle’s insistent stares. “So...what, exactly, are you suggesting I do about that?”

“A handkerchief,” recommended Siv, “that’s what I brought home to my parents when Torbjörn and I started courting seriously. It had the Västerström family crest on it, the flame and the river…”

“That’s a brilliant idea!” Decided Torbjörn, cheerfully clapping Emil on the shoulder. “Bring us a handkerchief with his insignia. We’ll at least know a little about his family, then.”

 _His family._ Did Lalli even have a family, Emil wondered vaguely, gaze already out the window on the distant greenery of the forest. He had only mentioned them once, though to be fair, it was not like their conversations thus far had really been conducive to such idle chat.

“Oh, one more thing.” Torbjörn reached into his pocket, coming up with a thick iron ring, which he extended to Emil in a flat palm. “It was your father’s when he was about your age. He told me to give it to you before he left this morning.”

A gift from his father? How uncharacteristic, though it was very much typical that Torolf would not bother giving it to him himself. Utterly perplexed, but not wanting to be rude, Emil slipped the ring onto his middle finger. It was slightly too big.

“Thanks?” 

“Sure. Now go on,” chuckled Torbjörn, shaking his head fondly as Emil turned to glance out the window yet again. “I bet he’s waiting for you now.”

* * *

This time around, Lalli’s sudden appearance in the birch grove did not startle Emil, who was carefully burying the two halves of the bone he had snapped in two. 

“It belonged to something once,” he explained sheepishly when he noticed Lalli watching him with an air of curiosity from the margins of the clearing.

 _“I know. A_ sielulintu _, soul-bird. You don’t need to worry. Its spirit lives.”_ A pause. _“Your ring is new.”_

“Right.” Emil cleared his throat and rocked back on his heels, brushing the earth from his hands. It caked in the lines of his palm, rich and dark, and he curled them both into fists at his sides as though the dirtiness was something to be ashamed of. The ring pressed into his skin, uncomfortable and chafing. “Yeah. It was my father’s.”

 _“It’s iron.”_ The apprehension in Lalli’s voice was unmistakable, and Emil realized that he was not coming any closer, hovering at the edge of the treeline.

Old stories that his nanny had told him when he was small swam to the forefront of his mind, hazy and vague. It took him a moment, but when he realized, he stifled his own mortified inhale. _Iron burns his kind,_ he remembered, _he can’t come closer._

Carefully, Emil twisted the ring off his finger, staring at it for a moment before cocking his arm back and flinging it as far as he could into the undergrowth. He didn’t bother looking to see where it landed.

Lalli watched from the safety of the trees, tracking the offending object until it had disappeared into the twisting snare of twigs and roots. _“You didn’t have to do that.”_

“I would rather not hurt you on accident,” admitted Emil, suddenly very interested in a loose stitch on the cuff of his shirt. “I didn’t like it that much anyway.”

 _“Something else is bothering you,”_ Lalli noted, rising from his haunches and arching his back in quivering stretch that offered a glimpse of the sheer power that rippled like water beneath thick fur: beautiful, fluid, dangerous.

Emil blinked, arching a baffled brow. “I guess. How’d you know?”

_“Your eyes. You don’t conceal your feelings very well.”_

“It’s my family again. They’re...kind of unrelenting about this whole thing,” he confessed, shifting aside to make room for Lalli as he padded across the clearing to be closer to him. “They want to know who you are. Or, really, who your family is.”

 _“My family is dead.”_ The statement was blunt and matter-of-fact, and it hit Emil like a punch to the gut. _“Except for my two cousins, and I haven’t been able to see them since--”_

As if in warning, the humid air rumbled, and further elaboration was neither needed nor given. The guilty lump in Emil’s throat demanded to be swallowed, so he choked it down, and prayed that his voice would not crack when he spoke.

“A handkerchief with your insignia. That’s all they want.” A realization hit him at once, and he hesitated. “Um, do you... _have_ an insignia?”

If Lalli had been able to, Emil was sure that he would have rolled his eyes at him. His voice in his head was equally unimpressed with what he probably deigned to be the stupidest question of the day. 

_“Yes, obviously. I can get that.”_

Relief flooded Emil’s muscles, warm and cloying as honey. “Thanks.”

For several minutes, they sat in companionable silence. The forest was a peaceful place, Emil noted. It was a shame that he had never bothered to see that before. Carefully, he folded his legs beneath him and leaned back into the smooth bark of an aspen tree, closing his eyes to listen. Birdsong floated through the green branches, and in the distance, there was the unmistakable babbling of a brook swollen with snowmelt from the mountains. It was lovely, but the silence in his head was unwelcome. He still had too many questions.

“Tell me about _Lintukoto._ ” Above them, paper-fine leaves trembled in the whispery breeze, and Lalli stretched out against the warm earth, long and lean.

_“I told you about it last time. Do you always forget things so quickly?”_

Emil couldn’t help but snort, shaking his head and folding his hands behind the curve of his neck.

“I mean tell me what it’s _really_ like, what living there is like. Or…” He hesitated, wondering if maybe he had chosen an insensitive subject, “what it used to be like.”

Lalli was still for a beat. The only indication of his continued attention was the rise and fall of his breath, and his sharp silver eyes, trained unblinkingly on Emil.

 _“It’s full of birds,”_ he said at last. _“In the winter, they come to stay, away from the cold. They guide souls through the nights, back and forth from the realm of the dead.”_

 _Stay quiet_ , thought Emil, who was barely breathing as though the softness of his exhales would break the sweet spell of Lalli’s voice. _Be still and maybe he’ll tell you more_.

 _“The whole place is made of magic. It’s in everything. Everyone. In the earth, and the forest, and the water. Usually it’s bright, but sometimes…”_ Lalli trailed off, sitting back up. His short tail lashed in agitation, and Emil had just opened his mouth to tell him he didn’t have to go on when he spoke again.

_“Sometimes the magic in someone goes bad, and they do awful things. They get greedy. Jealous. Hungry. They destroy what they want to and call it rebirth.”_

“Is that what happened to you?” Emil’s voice was barely a whisper, mouth suddenly very dry as he began to piece together the disjointed bits of Lalli’s story. _A curse, barely any family surviving, a horrible deed..._ “Is this why all of this is happening? Why you’re a lynx?”

Lalli would not meet his eyes, rising to pace the perimeter of the clearing with quick, anxious steps. The voice in Emil’s head faltered, as though Lalli was desperate to force out words that would not come.

 _“I can’t tell you,”_ he decided finally, choosing a tone that left little room for discussion. Emil, however, was undeterred.

“Lalli, please, you can trust me, I won’t--”

Lalli stopped his pacing, turning to glance mournfully at Emil’s anguished face. 

_“You don’t understand, I_ can’t _. Sleep now. I’ll get the handkerchief.”_

Desperately, Emil reached out to him, trying to clasp at hands that were not there, no matter how badly he wished they were. The beginnings of magic were beginning to stir the trees, raising the hairs on Emil’s arms and making his eyelids leaden. “No, Lalli, please, talk to me, let me know what’s really going on, we can fix this together, I can--”

**_“Sleep.”_ **

The spell was impossible to resist. This time, when Emil slumped soundlessly into the sun-warmed earth, he did not dream at all.

* * *

The walk back home was more eventful that Emil had been expecting. Usually, nobody bothered him beyond a perfunctory wave as he hurried through the cobbled streets, but word travelled fast in the Vinterstaden, and clearly his parents had not been at all subtle about the precious flowers that their son had retrieved from his mysterious fiancé.

“Emil!” 

The cry was all-too familiar, and Emil winced a little as he turned around to greet its speaker; a tall, gangly boy with a fiery braid that fell all the way down his back. Oh, not now, he was so eager to get home...

“Reynir, um, hi?” He hoped that his smile did not look as strained as it felt. Reynir had been his peer in the last few levels of public school, before Emil had decided he had had enough, and Reynir began to show the slightest glimmers of magical ability, and was shipped off for a summer to apprentice with his aunt in far-off Iceland.

“Hi! It’s been a while, I thought you were going to move to Mora to join the Cleansers?” Reynir bounced on his toes, clasping and unclasping his hands in front of him. His eagerness was palpable and so, _so_ annoying. Emil knew there was a real question burning at the tip of the other boy’s tongue, but he wasn’t about to prompt it. The sooner he could get out of this conversation, the better.

“Oh, no, I decided to stay here.” He cringed at the thought of his old dream of running off to live with his aunt and uncle and roam the wilds around Mora and joining the faction of elite knights looking for evil to slay in the name of the Gods. That would _not_ have gone well for him. “I don’t think Mora is the place for me.”

“Right!” Reynir’s response was too quick to have been full of any real interest, not that he cared - he had known this conversation was not going to be about his dreams and aspirations from the start. “So, um, those flowers I heard about,” he leaned in conspiratorially, and Emil balked, taking a step back, “are they really made of silver and gold?”

 _There it was._ There was no use in lying about it or anything, so he shrugged, trying to play it off as a completely ordinary occurence.

“Yeah.” 

Awestruck, Reynir’s mouth dropped open, eyes going as wide as the moon. “Wow, that’s so cool!” 

Emil shrugged again, toeing the dirt with the end of his scuffed boot. “I guess. Listen, this has been nice and all, but my parents will be wondering where I am...”

“Oh! Right, right. Sorry.” The other boy rubbed at the back of his neck with his wrist, tilting his head sheepishly. “Maybe we can hang out sometime?”

“Maybe,” called Emil over his shoulder, already well on his way having decided that there was _no way_ in _any_ of the nine worlds that he was going to hang out with Reynir alone. _That_ would have been torture.

The sun was falling fast over the trees, and the streets were growing dim. The Vinterstaden was well-guarded and never dangerous, but Emil still didn’t like to be out after dark. There was something eerie about seeing his own reflection in vacant shop windows, something unsettling in the cold emptiness of the streets. 

When he heard a whisper of his name from down a dark, winding alley, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Weeks before, he would have ignored the call and kept going, but his time in the forest had made him bold, and he stepped aside, peering into the waiting gloom.

“Hello?” He called, reaching for his knife and curling his fingers around the handle for comfort.

There in the alley, haloed in faint blue light, was the same tall, scruffy man that had given Emil the golden compass weeks before. There were dark smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes, and his feather cloak seemed dirtier than the last time they had met, but he was imperious and noble as ever.

“Careful who you trust, boy.” 

Emil blinked twice, and the alley was empty. Just to be sure, he looked again, calling out an echoey “anyone there?” that went unanswered by the cool, stony darkness. Utterly nonplussed, he adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder, and turned to carry on his way. Back in the eaves of the alley, a silver owl had gone unnoticed, watching every move with large, starlight-blue eyes.

His parents, aunt, and uncle were all waiting for him on the porch, pretending quite unconvincingly to read books that Emil knew weren’t worth it, and sipping at cups of overly-diluted wine. Wordlessly, Emil drew the handkerchief from his pocket and dropped it into his mother’s lap.

“Oh? This is beautiful!” Gasped Helga as she ran her fingers reverently over the embroidered symbol in the corner: a red six-pointed snowflake, with one of the points hollowed out. “More beautiful than the flowers, even. It’s like it’s made of sunlight…”

The cloth glowed bright gold in the evening light, soft and gauzy. It _was_ like sunlight: when Emil had picked it up for the first time from where it had laid next to his cheek on the bare earth, it had been warm in his hands, as though heated through by a fire. 

“The weaving is very tight,” agreed Siv, though her gaze was apprehensive, and focused more on Torbjörn, whose brows were furrowed as he took in the embroidered symbol. “He will make a fine husband for you, Emil.”

“Yes,” sighed Emil, unbuttoning the fastener of his cloak and turning to head inside. “I’m going to go to my room. Don’t send for me for supper, I’m not really hungry.”

* * *

“Helga.”

The woman in question did not look up from the mirror, instead continuing to brush out her fine golden hair with long, slow strokes of her comb. Back in the days of their good fortune, she had had a maid to do this for her, to brush the knots out until her hair shone like burnished gold and fell over her shoulders in loose, inviting waves. Now, her own shaking hands were barely up to the task.

“Look, I found something.” Torolf dropped an open book onto the dresser with a heavy thud, kicking up a puff of dust and paper debris that had Helga coughing and covering her nose and mouth with her nightgown.

“A book? That’s very nice, dear, but what…?” 

“There.” Torolf interrupted her, jabbing his finger into the worn page, smearing the ink just a little in his haste. A six-pointed snowflake embossed in gold leaf winked up at them in the low orange candlelight. “I knew I recognized it from somewhere. It’s the Hotakainen family crest.”

“Hotakainen? No. That can’t be right. That’s...that means Emil’s fiancé is…” When it clicked, Helga heaved a great gasp, resting her palm on her heaving chest to calm her rapidly climbing heart rate.

Torolf’s lips were pressed into a thin line as he met her eyes in the mirror, resting his hands a little too heavily on her thin shoulders. “...a _spirit_.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the lovely and thoughtful Tanist! Thank you for all of your sweet and consistent comments, I'm hoping you're well!
> 
> So here's chapter 4! Chapter 5 is already written, and I think I'll post it very soon, because I myself hate waiting. Enjoy!
> 
> xx.
> 
> Liv
> 
> GLOSS:
> 
> Jävlar - Swedish swear. Shit, or fuck, roughly.
> 
> Sielulintu - Soul bird, from Finnish mythology. Birds were said to bring your breath upon your birth, and take it upon your death. In between that, they guarded your soul in your sleep.
> 
> Vinterstaden - a nickname for Östersund
> 
> Lintukoto - A mythical realm in Finnish mythology, where birds home in the winter. I kind of took it and ran with it.
> 
> Edit: thanks to nikuttek for correcting me on the chapter title!


	5. Haltioissaan

The first thing Emil noticed when he opened his eyes was the color of sky. Instead of the off-white of his ceiling, or the familiar inky black of the night above the town, the dusky heavens were washed in deep shades of purple and blue.

With a deep breath, he sat up, digging the heels of his hands into the grassy knoll where he had been laying. The air was different here, he noticed. Cleaner, cooler... _brighter_. Around him floated luminous silver tufts that reminded him vaguely of the dandelion seeds that his little cousins insisted on blowing to the breeze every time they saw one. Above his head, the full moon glowed huge and radiant - he could count the craters without even squinting.

The clothes he was wearing were not at all the old cotton pajamas that he had gone to sleep in. Curiously, he plucked at his shirt, arching a brow at the tight weave. Soft white linen, fine leather, and warm fur - far too expensive for his family’s current situation. Strangest of all was the glowing golden circlet that rested against his forehead. When he touched it with the very tips of his fingers, it was warm, as though it had been sitting in the evening sun.

As curious as all of that was, none of it was able to captivate him for very long. Instead, he found himself utterly transfixed by the beautiful creature staring at him with wide almond eyes from the branches of a lone pine tree. Emil knew immediately who it was, even though he knew he’d never seen him in the waking world. 

The man leapt down from the branches with catlike grace, and Emil stood to greet him, feeling very clumsy by comparison. 

“You’re here,” Lalli stated simply, and Emil nodded slowly, taking in Lalli’s human form for the first time. He was beautiful, though that was not a surprise. The sharpness in his cheekbones and the angularity of his body made him seem more sprite than human, which, Emil realised with an internal chuckle, was rather fitting. Around his shoulders was a familiar silver pelt, flecked with darker gray patches and fastened at his throat with a pin that shone like the aurora.

“Where is _here_?” he asked, and when he reached out to try to grasp at one of the floating, glowing things flitting around them like so many butterflies, Lalli did not try to stop him.

“ _Lintukoto,_ realm of spirits, home of birds.”

“Oh. Is this real?” Emil breathed, momentarily distracted by the way that the grass swayed around them like a great sea, and Lalli shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“As real as you and I are,” he told him, but that didn’t help Emil at all, because Lalli looked positively _otherworldly_ , and the way his own heart was flipping in his chest made him feel like he was made of smoke. “But you _are_ dreaming, if that’s what you mean.”

“I don’t usually have dreams like this,” Emil admitted, cupping his hands gingerly around one of the little glowing fluffs and drawing it down towards his face, where it cast his features in soft silvery-blue light. On closer examination, he realized that it was not a luminous dandelion seed as he had thought, but a tiny animal, dewy-eyed and strange.

“Neither do I,” Lalli told him, watching with vague intrigue as the creature drifted from Emil’s palm, off into the pine branches where its kin had settled. “But this isn’t a normal dream anyway.”

“Then what is it?”

“ _Lintukoto_ is calling to you,” murmured Lalli, lifting his chin to take in the ethereal world around them before settling in the grass, cross-legged and straight-backed. “I’ve never seen it call out to a soul like this.”

Emil dropped to the earth next to him, folding his hands behind his head and staring up into the violet sky. With a start, he realized that what he had previously written off as the faint twinkling of stars were actually thousands of birds, white-winged and shining.

“So what does that mean? What does it want from me?” He asked, tilting his head to look sideways at his companion. Lalli had rested his hands on his knees, eyes closed against the soft breeze that rustled his pale hair and played with the sleeves of Emil’s shirt.

“It’s time for me to take you to _Lintukoto_.”

 _Oh_. When Emil reached for Lalli’s hand, the spirit recoiled, pressing his lips together and shaking his head firmly. Emil withdrew as though he had been scalded, wide-eyed and acutely embarrassed. His cheeks burned as he realized that he had never really touched Lalli before - not with only care in mind, at least. Had he just crossed some sort of invisible line and ruined everything?

“S-sorry,” he managed, and Lalli bit his lip, suddenly very interested in his own birchbark shoes. “I thought…”

“No, it’s not that, just, you can’t...I’m not…” He extended his palms helplessly, and Emil noticed for the first time that Lalli’s form was not entirely corporeal. It was like he was looking through a foggy window - the spirit was blurry around the edges, warped and fuzzy with strange, flickering wisps of mist and light.

“Is this because of what...what happened to you? The curse?” Emil dreaded the answer, and for a moment, it seemed like Lalli was going to ignore the question and keep his silence. When he spoke again, his voice was very soft.

“Yes,” Lalli murmured, and Emil pressed his palms flat into the grass, trying to quell the righteous anger licking at the back of his throat like tongues of flame. “I can still take this form in the dream world, but not for long. If you touched me, I wouldn’t be able to keep it. I’m not strong enough.”

“Will me coming to _Lintukoto_ change that?”

“I don’t know. It will change _something_.” Lalli got to his feet and stretched, lovely and deep, and Emil was utterly captivated. If he was beautiful in lynx form, he was breathtaking in human form, all slender limbs and razor edges. The spirit paused for a moment, mulling something over, before nodding decisively to himself. “When you wake, it will be just before dawn. Hurry to the forest, and don’t waste time. I can’t keep the threshold open for long.”

Before Emil could ask how he was supposed to go about the process of waking up, the sharpness of the dream world began to fade out around him, dissolving into glittering dust around the margins. 

“Um, Lalli? I think--!” He was cut off by his own alarmed squeak as he noticed his body, which was becoming more translucent by the second.

“Relax.” Lalli’s voice was soft and amused, soothing away the panic that had a vice-grip on Emil’s chest. “You’re waking up.”

The last thing to fade was a pair of blazing blue eyes, and the echoes of a final command.

“ _Hurry_.”

* * *

True to Lalli’s word, when Emil woke, the world was awash in grey pre-dawn light. For a moment, all he could do was lay still as the memories of his too-vivid dream came back to him in a rush of color and whispers that raised the hair on the back of his neck. 

_Hurry_ , Lalli had pleaded.

In seconds, Emil was on his feet, grabbing the first items of clothing that his fingers touched. His mind was a flurry of frantic thought as he fumbled with the buttons of his travelling cloak and grabbed his bag off the hook by the door, dashing into the cool, fresh mist of the morning.

That early in the morning, the streets were empty, save for the scent of freshly-baked bread wafting from the bakery. He really had no reason to cover his tracks, or to check to see if anyone was following him - nothing seemed suspicious. Nothing was out of place, though if he had looked behind him at just the right moment, perhaps he would have caught a glimpse of two figures keeping to the shadows, quick and secretive.

The forest welcomed him as it always did, green and damp and full of life. This time, no fear wrapped its cold fingers around his heart as he walked the familiar paths, veering off into the birch grove where he had met Lalli for the first time just weeks before.

 _So much has changed since then_ , he thought, patting at his cloak pockets in search of the final bone Lalli had given him.

To his surprise, his hands came up empty in the front two pockets. Puzzled, he reached up into his breast pocket, feeling around and finding nothing but a chunk of lint and, to his surprise, the golden compass the man in the alley had given him. The once-brilliant arrow spun in lazy, useless circles behind the glass -- had that crack always been there? -- and Emil shook his head as he tucked it away again.

“Where did I…?” He whispered to himself, before his thoughts were interrupted by the familiar sound of a _snap_ behind him.

“Looking for this?” Came a low voice from over his shoulder, and Emil whipped around to see his father dangling the two pieces of the final bone between his thumb and forefinger. Behind him, wrapped tightly in her red cloak, was his mother, wide-eyed and horrified. His mouth went dry.

“Dad?” he managed, eyes darting from the bone to the hard lines in his father’s face. “How did you get that? What did you do?!” 

“The insignia you brought us, son,” drawled Torolf, dropping the halves of the bone into the moss, where they lay, bleached and splintered and wholly ordinary. “It belongs to the Hotakainen family - or it _did_ , before they all disappeared.”

“They’re forest spirits, Emil,” whispered Helga, “you were tricked.”

“Lalli didn’t _trick_ me, I know what he is,” Emil snapped, and he only felt a little guilty when his mother drew further back into her cloak. “I’m going with him _willingly_.”

“You’re not going with him at _all_ ,” sneered Torolf, and Emil was suddenly acutely aware of the weighted net slung over his father’s left shoulder. _Iron_ , he realized with dawning horror, _those weights are made of iron._

Later, when Emil tried to parse out what had happened next, he would find that it all made him too dizzy to figure out. The air in the clearing shimmered like silk, and then parted, as though someone had pulled back a heavy curtain. Beyond the curtain were the wide, swaying grasslands of Emil’s dreams, and moving through them, graceful as a dancer--

Before he could shout a warning, the net was cast in a wide, twisting arc, and just beyond the threshold, the lynx crumpled to the dirt, hissing and yowling with red-hot pain.

“ _Lalli_!” Emil cried. Lightning-quick fury arced through his whole being, but before he could lunge after his father to stop him, Torolf surged towards the threshold, hands extended in a greedy, grasping motion.

With a crack like thunder, the threshold flickered, and Torolf was thrown back as if by an explosion.

“ _Fan,_ ” he wheezed, sprawled out on his back in the sun-baked dirt. Before he could get his breath back and get back to his feet, Emil was in front of the threshold, knife drawn and eyes full of fire. 

“Don’t come any closer.” Though his hands and voice shook, his feet were planted firmly and unshakingly in the earth.

“Emil, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Torolf laughed, and it was a bitter, humorless sound. He drew himself up, brushing leaves and twigs from his pants. “You’ve seen what he can do, silver and gold, cloth of the sun...that’s just the beginning! We could have it all back. We could have _more_. Son, listen to me.”

“Be reasonable,” pleaded Helga, extending her slender hands to Emil. “Come back to us. We’ll make it better again.”

This time, when Emil spoke, his voice did not shake at all. “ _No_.”

Helga covered her mouth in horror as Torolf’s bushy brows furrowed. “No? Have you lost your _mind_?” 

“No. You’ve lost your heart, if you ever had one to begin with. Lalli has been to me what nobody else ever has, including you! He saved my life. Don’t you see? I don’t _care_ about getting back what we had. That’s gone. I’m going to my future, and if Lalli’s all there is in it, then that’s _fine by me._ ” With a final furious glance at his parents, Emil dropped his knife into the dust and turned to cross the threshold.

The second his feet had cleared the border between mortal and spirit realm, there was a piercing howl, and the heavens shook. The flash of blue light that came with it was so blinding that Emil had to throw his hands in front of his eyes, and when it faded out, there were still fuzzy patches floating in his vision.

He paid them no mind, because there, curled naked in the grass under a spotted silver pelt, was the most beautiful sight Emil had ever seen. 

“ _Lalli_ ,” he whispered, falling to his knees beside him and reaching out to brush fine, silvery hair off of his face. At the tender touch, Lalli stirred, tired eyes fluttering open. When they met Emil’s, the whole of _Lintukoto_ sang.

“...Emil.” Hearing Lalli’s voice in the air between them was strange after only hearing it in his head for so long. Emil was certain that there was no sweeter sound on earth than that soft, husky rasp.

“Look at you,” he breathed, carefully gathering Lalli into his arms. The spirit’s shimmering skin bore faint red burns from the iron weights, but they were fading, melding back in with the uniform snowy paleness of the rest of his body. “You’re human again.”

“Not human,” Lalli reminded him, carefully adjusting the lynx fur to keep himself covered and reaching up to rest a slender-fingered hand on Emil’s chest, right above his heart. “You broke the spell. When you crossed over.”

“When I crossed over...why didn’t it happen the first time? You know, when we met, with the beast and everything?” asked Emil, glancing over to the space where the threshold had been just moments before. Now, only a narrow swathe of flattened grass indicated anything unusual had happened there.

“Because you came willingly this time,” Lalli whispered, resting his exhausted head on Emil’s shoulder. “You were going to give everything up...for me.”

“Yeah,” whispered Emil, suddenly choked with a sort of aching fondness he’d never felt before, “and I’d do it again.”

“ _Please_ don’t.”

Emil could only chuckle. When Lalli leaned in to kiss him, it was a new, clumsy thing, more laughter and sighs than actual kissing, and he found that he didn’t mind one bit. Finally, when they drew apart, Emil rested his forehead against Lalli’s, breathless and light as the air around them.

“So, about that marriage. Are we still on?” he murmured, and Lalli rolled his eyes, drawing the fur a little tighter around himself as he shifted to sit up in Emil’s lap.

“ _Yes_. But can we worry about getting me some clothes first?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't wait to post this, so here's the fifth chapter! The next one will be the epilogue, and will tie up some loose ends. This chapter actually came to me at 3:30 AM a few days ago, and was written before chapter 4, because I never write anything linearly. Like, ever. I also don’t know why Lalli doesn’t have any clothes, but it was imperative to me from the beginning that that’s how the transformation would go. I don’t think Emil minds all that much.
> 
> I've been spending lots of time outside in the sunshine, and I'm searching for a summer job, but things are still iffy and tumultuous here, so who knows how that's going to go. Regardless, I'll still have time to write, since I won't be doing much traveling this summer. :(
> 
> I've really, really enjoyed writing this story, and it's bittersweet to be so close to the end! If anyone has suggestions about things they want to see written next, go ahead and send them over so I can put my grubby little paws aaaaaallllll over them.
> 
> Hoping everyone's well!
> 
> xx.
> 
> Liv
> 
> GLOSS:
> 
> Fan - Swedish swear. Damn, or shit.
> 
> Lintukoto - Finnish mythology. Literally “bird home” (lintu.koto) as it was believed to be the place where birds homed in winter, but it’s also used as a modern term for a safe haven. I took the concept and ran with it.


	6. Avioliitto

The forests of _Lintukoto_ were lovely, dark and deep, and Emil made a conscious effort never to venture into them alone. There were still too many things that he didn’t understand about the realm, like why there were sometimes two moons instead of one, or why he heard the silver trees whispering his name through the open window late at night. He feared that if ever he wandered too far, he would be lost for good in a world he could never seem to comprehend, fodder for hungry beasts, or for the searching roots of wild plants.

There were days that Lalli offered to take Emil out with him on his evening walks through the trees, and Emil always agreed. They rarely spoke on these long strolls, but sometimes Lalli would stop and point out a new flower, or to give a name to the wide-eyed creatures watching them through the low, tangled undergrowth. 

Sometimes, if nature provided, they would stop and share an apple or a handful of berries that Lalli would procure from rambling briars along the path. Those were peaceful moments, spent leaning against the trees and each other, and watching as the multicolored leaves rustled in the cool autumn breeze. 

Emil knew something was up when Lalli came to get him for a walk just as the sun was reaching its zenith: they never left at this hour. It was best to wait until the shadows grew long, Lalli had told him once. Most creatures moved at dawn and dusk, and moonrise was the best time for magic. There was also the insistence with which Lalli was refusing to meet his eyes, and the way he took his time as they traipsed through the undergrowth. The leaves and branches parted for them, and he murmured his thanks to them as they veered off course, into a part of the forest that Emil was sure they had not explored before. Not together, at least.

When Lalli stopped, he held out his arm, indicating that Emil should come no closer, before reaching out to touch the rough bark of a great pine tree with the tips of his gloved fingers. Under his breath, he sang what Emil could now recognize as a short spell, a request to the spirit of the tree. Reaching into the leather pouch at his waist, he tossed a few dried rose hips over the roots, and the bark shimmered in a hundred different colors, before the tree contorted, stretching itself into a shifting, swirling opening in the air. Beyond it, Emil could see his town, bustling with preparations for the harvest festival, and his heart lurched in his chest.

“Is that…?” He began, taking a step closer to see better. There were great bales of golden hay resting on carts in the street, and he recognized the seal on the sides of huge wooden barrels of apple wine. If he listened, he could hear a band playing a song that he recognized from his early childhood - he and his mother had always danced to it in the square, with him standing on her feet as they enjoyed the last good weather before winter.

“I have to offer you a choice,” Lalli told him quietly, stepping away from the threshold and waving his hand back towards it. “I won’t keep you here if you don’t want to.” He cleared his throat, suddenly very interested in a frill of blue mushrooms growing on a nearby spruce. “So...you can go back now. If you want.”

Emil balked, sapphire eyes wide with confusion as he looked from Lalli, to the strange, twisting opening. Nobody in the village seemed to be paying it any mind to the portal at all - it seemed to be one-way, as far as he could tell.

“Do you...not want me here?” He asked feebly, trying to catch Lalli’s eye to no avail. “What about the curse?”

“No! That’s not it.” Lalli wrapped his own arms around his middle, finally meeting Emil’s eyes over the fluffy collar of his cloak. “The curse doesn’t say you have to marry me. Only that you have to agree to it. I just... I don’t want to keep you here if you don’t want—“

“ _Lalli_ ,” Emil interrupted, reaching out to slide his hand along the razor edge of Lalli’s jaw. Lalli fell quiet, instead choosing to let the wordless depth of his eyes speak for him. _Don’t go._

“There’s not a lot left back there for me. I...never really fit in well with my peers, and my parents...I’m not sure they’d like to see me again,” he admitted, shaking his head with a mournful little smile. In the dappled light of the forest, his hair and skin shone like gold, and Lalli had to remind himself to listen instead of just staring. “I chose to come here. I choose to stay. I _want_ to stay, if you’ll have me, but if this is your way of telling me to-”

Lalli shut him up by grabbing the front of his shirt and kissing him with a dizzying ferocity that left Emil seeing stars even after they had broken apart. Behind them, the portal dissolved, reworking itself back into a completely ordinary pine tree. As they walked back to the edge of the forest, Emil reached for Lalli’s hand, and when he found it, Lalli did not pull away.

* * *

They were married in deepest midwinter, when the moon was high above the bare trees and the stars were a thousand tiny pinpricks in the black velvet sky. Onni rapped at Emil’s door at midnight and told him to get dressed, and to hurry. Emil shook off the dreams still fogging up his head, and did as he was told. Onni only nodded in approval when he stepped outside, and gestured for Emil to follow, guiding him across blue-cast snow into the wilds of _Lintukoto_. Neither of them said a word to the other as they waded through deep white drifts, finally stopping in a grove of silver birch trees.

“Are you sure about this?” Onni had asked him when he came by the day before to deliver the clothes Emil was to wear for the wedding: a beautiful embroidered cape and gloves, a fine, warm tunic, and long pants. Simple, but elegant. The finishing touch was a shining golden circlet that Lalli had made himself, just like the one Emil had worn in the dream they had shared.

“ _Yes_.” Emil hadn’t hesitated. There were few things he was sure about these days - where he was going to be in a year’s time, what he was going to do with himself now, if he would ever be able to let his parents back into his life - but marrying Lalli was a non-negotiable certainty. They had chosen each other, time and time again, and whatever he was getting himself into, he was sure that he wanted to get into it with Lalli.

According to a tradition that Emil didn’t quite understand, he and Lalli had not been permitted to see each other for three days before their wedding. Lalli had gone off to the foothills of the mountains, presumably to gather himself and strengthen his spirit, and Emil had wiled away the time in the little wood cabin they had built near the meeting of the great grass sea and the dark forest. 

He was never bored: _Lintukoto_ was a fascinating place. Magic was in everyone and everything, just as Lalli had told him weeks ago as they lay together in the sunlight of a different world. Some of the trees outside the window glowed at night, and one morning, when he had woken with the sun, he had heard ethereal, far-off singing coming from the direction of the lake. There was always something new to see, or touch, or hear, but despite all of the mysteries he had to unravel, he missed Lalli’s company terribly. Onni came and went, but they never talked much, and Onni certainly would not take him on long, winding walks through the forest and point out all the berries and mushrooms that were edible, or tell him which bird was making that peculiar call.

The night was bitterly cold, and Emil suppressed a shiver as he wrapped his cloak tighter around himself. Lalli was nowhere to be seen, and he was sure they had been waiting for longer than the fifteen minutes Onni had estimated beforehand. Time flowed differently in _Lintukoto,_ but winter still bit just the same. 

The anxiety fluttering like a hummingbird behind his ribs was made more acute by the fact that he wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Onni and Lalli had not told him much about the wedding rituals of _Lintukoto_ , aside from the fact that they would be a little different than what he was used to. That being said, he definitely was not expecting to be roused from his bed in the dead of night and dragged off into the snowy forest - they could have _at least_ waited until morning, he thought, crossing his arms over his chest to conserve warmth.

Before he could open his mouth to ask Onni what _exactly_ was happening here, a birch tree off to his left trembled as though caught in a light breeze, and Lalli lept gracefully from the low branches, landing catlike in the snow.

Dressed in fur and birchbark, he looked more spirit than human, haloed by that flickering, starlight-blue glow that Emil had begun to recognize as Lalli’s own kind of magic. Black markings had been traced onto his high, sharp cheekbones in what looked to be ash: dots and swirling lines that he was sure meant something significant, but were otherwise incomprehensible to him. His lynx-fur cloak was clasped at his throat with a crescent moon pin, and a matching silver circlet rested in his pale hair.

The spirit was silent as he crossed the clearing to stand before Emil, leaving no footprints behind in the powdery snow. Lalli was mystery coalesced into being, but when he met Emil’s eyes and reached for his hands, another piece of the puzzle fell into place. 

“I missed you,” Emil whispered, his breath a cloud of white in the frigid air. Lalli only smiled his secret little half-smile, letting his actions speak for him.

“Take off your gloves,” Onni told them, and they untangled their fingers to pull off leather and cloth, tucking them away into their pockets until later. The chill of winter stung Emil’s bare skin as Onni drew the golden compass from a pocket in his own feathered cloak and rested it in the flat of Emil’s palm. He found Lalli’s hands again, clasping them tightly and marvelling over the smooth softness of his skin, the slight webbing between his thumb and forefinger, the delicate strength in each long finger. 

The compass was solid between their palms, made warm by the radiant heat of their skin. With utmost care, Onni wound a wide strip of golden cloth around their hands and wrists, binding them together and fastening it all with a loose knot. The ribbon glowed like the noonday, and Emil registered vaguely that it was the same kind of cloth as the handkerchief that Lalli had brought him. It warmed their bare skin. _Cloth of the sun,_ his father had called it. 

Lalli kept his wide, moon-silver eyes locked on Emil’s, allowing his partner a rare glimpse into his wild heart. The naked trust behind them sent a shiver rippling down his spine, and he held his hands just a little tighter in hopes that his own would stop shaking. _Oh. This is it,_ he realized, mouth suddenly dry as a desert.

When Onni started chanting, it was in a language that Emil did not know, but that he knew had heard in the far-away haven of his dreams. Fluid and sonorant, it filled the clearing, stirring the trees and reaching into the thin space between him and Lalli. Magic like liquid fire hummed through them both, and Emil had to remind himself to keep breathing, that the earth was still solid beneath his feet, and Lalli’s hands were still clasping his. Light was leaking through the spaces between their intertwined fingers, resplendent and warm, but Emil could not tear his eyes away from the man in front of him.

“My soul will find yours,” promised Lalli in a voice meant only for Emil, and his eyes were glowing in the shining, ice-blue color of raw magic. 

There were so many words that Emil had hoped to be able to say. He had mulled it over in the time they were apart, trying to figure out the perfect vows, but now that they were here in the forest, wrapped in starlight and shining gold ribbon, words failed him. Onni was still chanting, and the words were blending with the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears, and the glacial wind that was picking up around them.

“You,” he managed, “and no other.”

Emil leaned in and kissed him, and the whole world shrunk down to the warmth of their lips, the beating of their hearts, and their hands clasped in an unbreakable promise. They were bound now, by vows and ribbon and moonlight, and by the intertwining of their souls. Emil could feel it in every fiber of his being, as true as the chill of winter, and the heat of the sun in the summer.

When they broke apart, Lalli’s eyes were back to their familiar, intense grey. Onni was unwinding the ribbon from their wrists, and reluctantly, Emil let go of his partner’s hands, returning the compass to Onni. 

The older spirit examined the little golden trinket, a faint, almost unnoticable smile on his lips as he threaded the ribbon through a little loop at the top and handed it back to Emil.

“Keep it,” he told him, “and wear it, or put it above your hearth. It’s a powerful charm.”

Emil could not have agreed more.

* * *

They returned to their little cabin just as the moon began to sink back down into the lake, and the sky started to lighten with the grey beginnings of dawn. As soon as the door swung closed behind them, Emil’s back was against it, and Lalli’s lips were on his, hungry and wanting. Hands were on his waist, then in his hair, and he reached out to grasp Lalli’s slender shoulders for support. His knees were suddenly weak, and he was grateful for the rough wood of the door to lean on. There was an urgency to this kiss that none of their other ones had had, and it was making his whole body burn, white-hot as a bonfire.

When they fell into bed together, Lalli’s quick fingers already undressing him, Emil found the coherence to gasp out, “Wait, wait. Are you sure you want this?”

Lalli stopped, pulling back for a moment. His lips were kiss-bitten and red, cheeks dark with color that Emil quickly decided looked lovely on him. 

“Yes,” he stated, before tilting his head and leaning back into the pillows, where he surveyed Emil curiously. The ash markings were smeared, dark and soft, beneath his eyes, and Emil reached out to gently wipe some away with an unsteady hand, ignoring the residue on his thumb. “Do you?”

He could barely gasp out his resounding _gods, yes, yes, yes_ before they were tangled together again. Emil’s hands wandered over the planes of Lalli’s body, mapping the valleys of his spine, the graceful slope at the junction of his shoulder and neck, the ridges of his hipbones. There was nothing left untouched, and Lalli was starting to have trouble telling where he ended and Emil began. When Emil pressed his lips to his collarbone, mouthing a burning trail down his chest, all the way to the parting of his thighs, all of his thoughts came to a screeching halt in favor of the pleasure overwhelming every one of his sharp senses.

Once he had recovered from the haze clouding his mind, he reached for Emil, pinning him to their bed and swallowing his hungry gasping with a series of soft, too-brief kisses to his mouth and jaw. The blond melted into every touch, laying back into the mound of pillows as Lalli broke him into a thousand shuddering pieces and then loved him back together again.

When they were finally still again, folded into each other under heavy quilts and soft furs, Emil let out a long breath, staring up to the rough beams of their ceiling. Lalli tucked his head into the crook of his bare shoulder, warm and flushed and still a little breathless from their lovemaking. The soft light from their fireplace washed over them like the rising tide, painting the hollows of his cheekbones in sharp relief, and turning Emil’s hair to molten gold as it spilled out across the pillow.

“So we’re really married?” Emil breathed, skimming the hand not wound around Lalli’s waist over the space between his shoulder blades. In response, Lalli yawned widely, eyes fluttering as he rested a palm on the expanse of Emil’s chest.

“Yes,“ confirmed Lalli, sleep slurring his raspy voice. 

A hundred questions still lingered in the back of Emil’s mind, but he was feeling pleasantly warm and heavy, and Lalli had already slipped off to the world of dreams. He dozed off just as the sun was rising, painting _Lintukoto_ with the bright colors of a new day.

* * *

On the distant edge of _Lintukoto_ , where the world fell away into the deep, raging sea, a young woman slept on the black sand, tormented by the rising tide and the dark creature huddled above her. She could not wake, and her dreams were misty and thin, shifting every time she tried to gather the fog into something meaningful.

The creature rested against the sheer cliffside, weakened and sick, and the woman groaned in her sleep, thrashing on the cold earth as her dreams shifted yet again. It wasn’t paying attention, she could feel it. If she called out now, maybe it wouldn’t notice. Gathering all of her strength, she cried into the thickening dream-haze, as loud as she could manage.

_“Lalli? Onni? Are you out there, can you hear me? Please help!”_

Lalli woke with a start, sitting bold-upright in bed and blinking in the mid-afternoon sunlight. Emil was awake too, wide-eyed and baffled.

“A girl,” he babbled, “someone called out in my dream, she said your name…”

At Lalli’s stricken face, he shook the cobwebs of sleep from his head and reached out to rest a comforting hand on his thigh. He wasn’t sure what the dream meant, but judging by the way all the blood had drained from Lalli’s cheeks, it was clearly more serious than he had thought. “You heard it too?” 

Lalli was on his feet in a flash, gathering his traveling cloak from where he had thrown it in a careless heap on a chair by the door. 

“Tuuri,” he gasped, shoving Emil’s own cloak at him urgently and throwing the door open. “Come. Now. We have to find Onni.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I cannot believe this little story is done! What a trip this has been - I started writing this with a completely different idea of where the story was going to go, but once I started, it became something completely different. (My original notes actually have no mention of the world of Lintukoto at all!) 
> 
> This was also meant to be a standalone instead of part of a series, but as I hope the ending made clear, there will be more. I'm going to take a break from this world and write something a little more lighthearted, but don't worry, it should be short!
> 
> This story is loosely based on the Hungarian folktale The Pussycat Princess, but I obviously took a whole lot of liberties. Here's a cute little animated version of it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30u7SInryfY
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed reading this piece as much as I enjoyed writing it (although this last chapter gave me hell.) Thank you all for your continued support, and I'll see you for the sequel All Is Found.
> 
> xx.
> 
> Liv
> 
> GLOSS:
> 
> Lintukoto - Finnish mythology. Bird home, you guys know the etymology by now. Definitely took some creative liberties here!
> 
> Handfasting - Wedding tradition throughout much of Europe (and now much of the world.) Involves the binding of hands with cords or ribbon. S/o to my mom for helping me slog through writing a wedding scene!


End file.
